10 Billion Year Old Toast

Damn, hit the submit button by mistake, now I've lost my train of thought :evil:
Bill.

My assumption about this discovery is that it is of some significance that the 'building blocks' (i.e. the organic molecules) were detected in quite young galaxies.

This is important to our understanding of how our own galaxy was formed, and especially what stuff appeared when. Including life.

Yes. But my thoughts are; isn't it too big a jump, shouldn't we work slowly back to it? It's actually quite awesome the fact that this can, and has been done, but what about the bit in between? Or maybe the bit I'm missing is it's easier to start here and work forward now? I don't know, I would have thought that those molecules were there anyway (this is my naive brain now ) and all that has happened is they have now proved the obvious, so what now happens with this knowledge? Is it going to be put to positive use, or will they now look for something else as dramatic to do and let this fade away?
I'm really not trying to be controversial or awkward, just trying to understand how they are working. I just keep thinking of flashes, ToR, Einstein, big booboo(?).
Bill.

Bill - i think that we (or rather the scientists) are studying the universe as a whole. Of course, where we live (the solar system) is important but I guess the space beyond is equally so. I know that there are still many questions about our locality but science is still looking at that - eg Deep Impact, Cassini, return to the moon etc. Boffins are also looking at the bigger picture too. With large budgets and a job to justify, they need to spread it around a bit. If we concentrated on our neck of the woods alone, I think we'd lose a good bit of knowledge. And knowledge of the beyond probably contributes significantly to local knowledge.

Finding and studying extra solar planets gives us a better yardstick with wioth to compare our own system. Looking for the signatures of life elsewhere put us into context.

What scientists do, and why they do it, is simply to advance knowledge. If some bloke in the early 1900's said he was going to investigate a theory called Relativity, a lot of people would ask why. If someone asked for a 5 billion fund to send particles whizzing round vast tunnels, you'd have to question their sanity. But these things have been allowed to happen and our knowledge has increased as a result. Sometimes for humanity's benefit, sometimes not.

Who knows why certain research projects are started and yet seemingly more basic (and fundamentally important) one's are not. For example, I understand that the mission to Pluto is not definite yet the James Webb project continues.

I know what you mean about the book analogy but perhaps all the chapters are still being written, by countless people. And we're nowhere near The End...

€0.02 worth....